Nine-Tenths of the Law
by 1701dragonflies
Summary: Summary: Because ownership's a funny thing. Stefan muses as he watches Elena and Damon. Spoilers through to the end of 4.03 and based on the teasers I've seen for 4.04, but probably (definitely) AU.


Nine-Tenths of the Law

Summary: Because ownership's a funny thing. Stefan muses as he watches Elena and Damon. Spoilers through to the end of 4.03 and based on the teasers I've seen for 4.04, but probably (definitely) AU.

A/N: I'm writing Damon and Elena by slowly working my way around every character but them. Oh well. Maybe I'll write a fic one day where I actually write from their point of view.

I guess so much of this fic is based on what Stefan sees versus what he hypothesises. I'm not sure I like this, especially the end, but figured I'd post it anyway.

Disclaimer: The Vampire Diaries and its universe is the property of its respective owners. I just wrote this for fun with no copyright infringement intended.

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Stefan doesn't think much about ownership, not really. He grew up in the South during the nineteenth century; the question of ownership can be a tricky one. Even now, as a vampire, the question of ownership's a thorny one. He can't own property because he's dead, or a bank account or social security number, because it would ask too many questions. To be sure, he can own possessions, material items that clutter up his room and tell a story of his long life to date, but most of them were inherited (seized) rather than bought; they might live in his house but he doesn't _own_ them, not really. He just carries them around with him, ghosts of his old life. Sometimes he feels like they own him, rather than the other way around.

Even so, he's a vampire. The question of ownership is problematic for a vampire. Especially for a vampire who has a recently-transitioned girlfriend, a girlfriend who his elder brother craves with a scary kind of passion.

Stefan knows that he doesn't _own_ Elena, and he wouldn't want to. He wants her to be free, free in her new life the way she wasn't in her old one. The old Elena was weighed down with grief and remorse, convinced that every wrong in Mystic Falls just had to rest on her slender shoulders. He doesn't want to own Elena, but he doesn't want her to be owned in her new life the way she was in her old. Old Elena was owned by her grief and her empathy and her moral compass and she let it kill her – literally. New Elena runs the risk of being owned by her grief, and her guilt, and her bloodlust; owned the way he has often become.

It's to be expected; she is a vampire, after all, and blood to them is like oxygen to humans, and Elena's transition has been particularly difficult. Even so, Stefan doesn't want Elena to be owned by the bloodlust, to be consumed by it the way he often is. He wants her to see that there are good things about being a vampire, too. He wants her to own herself, own her transition, own her new life. He just wants to be able to help her.

It's a sobering thing, to admit your own failings; Stefan doesn't think he's mastered it despite living through countless Presidents and too many wars and so many dead, but the more he watches Elena in her new life, the more he realises that this is something he can't help her with, something he can't own.

Instead, Elena's transition is something that Elena owns. But it's something Damon owns; like a child, they nurture together, it grows and grows each day, evolving and changing in itself as well as changing its sometimes-oblivious parents.

In a way, Damon was the logical choice to help Elena: he enjoys his bloodlust without being consumed by it, skirting the thin line between owning and owned, always knowing when to stop feeding. If Stefan wasn't consumed – dare he say, owned – by his near-pathological jealousy, he'd posit Damon as something of an ideal teacher now that his psychotic tendencies have been reigned in.

And besides, after the events of this past summer, Stefan really isn't in a position to judge Damon for his psychoses, if indeed he ever was. Damon might be many things but he has never been anything other than what he is: a predator. He has never offered nor asked for any excuses, unlike Stefan who has over one hundred years' worth of absolution and guilt written in his elegant hand in fraying journals organised by year.

But what's even more galling to Stefan is that if he were to really think about it, Damon owns Elena in a way that Stefan never will and never can. It's not his fault, not her fault, or even Meredith Fell's fault; she gave Elena Damon's blood hoping to heal Elena's wounds, never for one moment thinking events would spiral the way that they did. How could Stefan ever have expected to be Elena's teacher when it isn't his blood that runs through her veins, no matter how infinitesimal the amount? How can he compete with his brother, the man who held Elena together while he was ripping the world apart, the man whose blood gave Elena some kind of life after that awful accident, when Stefan was too concerned with doing the moral thing than with doing the right (selfish?) thing? How can he compete with Damon, who flows within Elena's veins, who literally flows into her heart and helps it pump her new life force around her newly-resilient body? How can he compete with the strength Damon has given her, the freedom his blood has given her: freedom from the doppelganger curse, from the army of evil doers bent on taking her blood, free from the never-ending litany of curses and life and death situations that seem to follow them all around?

Stefan would never admit it because he knew that it wasn't what Elena wanted, but he had given some thought to her transformation, should she choose to take that path and decide that being with him forever was a serious option. He'd had it all planned out, of course; something romantic and relaxing and controlled, where he'd be with her every step of the way to guide her, to reassure her, to tell her that everything will be alright, that he can fix everything, even as he knew it was a certain kind of lie and one that Damon would certainly never tell. Stefan hadn't envisaged her gruesome final moments as a human, the shock and terror that passed across her waterlogged face when she woke up and was confronted by the very real nightmare from which there is no real escape but a fiery death at the hands of a wooden stake.

He'd had it all planned out: lights, candles, a vial of his blood, warmed to the right temperature to make it palatable. Just enough to ensure the transition, enough to stay in her system for all of time, a tangible link to bind them both together, followed by a bag of blood, or a glass of something furry from the forest.

Stefan used to think that Damon was the harbinger of death, but in Elena's case it's the opposite: however inadvertently he has remade her into something new, something different. Something challenging and wonderful and terrifying all at the same time. And Stefan doesn't have the first idea what to do with her.

But Damon doesn't just own Elena; she owns him, too. Damon has created many vampires over the years, all of which were inadvertent, except for Vicki, who was a cruel whim. Most of them he has discarded like unwanted pets. Elena is the only one he has wanted to teach, the only one he has really wanted to help. Stefan wishes he could say that their relationship was familial, like a brother-sister or a father-daughter relationship, but it isn't. Its familial to be sure but it's so far from fraternal or parental that it twists and burns in Stefan's gut the longer he thinks about it, because Damon's patience and dedication to teaching Elena are nothing short of remarkable. The more he watches it, the more Stefan is convinced that Damon's love for Elena is a part of it, but not the only reason.

Damon doesn't just see Elena as the woman he loved (loves). He sees her as a kindred spirit, more alike to him than his brother ever will be, his brother with his binges and his constant on and off the wagon, his Ripper tendencies held at bay only by iron will and a good dose of fear and guilt. Damon sees it straight away. Elena lives in blissful denial as she hugs the toilet bowl and pukes up animal blood. Stefan is slowly beginning to see what Damon sees: that he and Elena are the same. The way Elena and Stefan used to be the same when she was human.

What's more remarkable is to watch how they are together, now. Stefan isn't sure whether it's the blood they share, the bond they share that has its roots in Stefan's absence (even if Stefan has heard their hushed whispers about just who met whom first and furious 'I remembers' whispered by the fireplace when he leaves the room), for which he only has himself to blame, or something else that they shared, something that has its roots in stolen kisses and a road trip to Denver that is nothing more than a blank spot of denial in Stefan's consciousness and a furtive look whenever Jeremy sees them together. Whatever it is, it has bound them together, given them an awareness of the other that is hyper-intense even for a vampire.

Sometimes he wonders if he should do them all a favour and leave, slip away into the forest and leave Elena and Damon to their teaching and learning, leave them to muddle through her transition. It's weird, seeing him with her and seeing himself with her and wondering how he ever thought they would last, how they ever thought they were forever. His feelings for her haven't changed, of course, but Elena's changed. She's the same except in the one way that matters: within herself. Now when he kisses her he sees a certain sad wistfulness, catches her looking out of the window sometimes and twisting her daylight ring around on her finger. They still hunt together, but afterwards she disappears to the bathroom in the other wing of the house and when she comes down there's sweat beading her brow and she bats away his concerns.

"I can do this, Stefan." She insists as he finally gets her to talk about feeding. "I want to try the animal diet, I do. I want it to work."

"I know you do." Stefan says, just as his heart breaks because he knows that they aren't just talking about the Bunny Diet (never has Damon's voice sounded more mocking in his ear) and she knows it, too.

Even so, there's no hiding the retching that punctuate the hours that follow their daily hunting sessions.

"Can't you do something?" Stefan's so desperate he can't believe he's asking Damon, the prodigal teacher, for advice.

Damon splashes whiskey into his glass as he answers his brother. "You know what I think."

Stefan's lost track of how many that is now; his brother's always liked a drink but bourbon before the school day has started is probably a bit much. But Stefan bites his tongue when he sees Damon's eyes. He knows why his brother drinks, after all.

The day Elena abandons the Bunny Diet is the day they stop sleeping together.

To be sure, it isn't a conscious thing; it's not like Stefan would refuse her simply because she didn't share his dietary habits, but he can smell the human blood on her breath and that's actually worse than smelling Damon's blood on her breath, and she looks at him with such remorse in her eyes when she tells him that she can't go hunting with him anymore, that he just doesn't know what to do or say.

"I was thinking about spending the night at home, tonight." She says as she toys with a glass of reheated O Negative.

"If that's what you want."

"It is." Elena sounds tired but firm. "I feel like I haven't seen Jeremy in forever, and this will be a good test of my control."

It's a logical argument, but Stefan can't help but feel like it's the beginning of the end for them. Even so, he's made it his habit throughout their relationship to let her make her own choices, her own mistakes, so he nods and smiles and says, "Sure, Elena. Whatever you want."

That night Stefan lies in bed at night and wonders if the only thing he owns anymore is his own descent into insanity.

Then he wakes up and hears Damon's suggestion.

"No." He says as he hears the words come out of his brother's mouth. "Absolutely not. It's a terrible idea."

"She's able to decide this for herself and she has. She needs blood, Stefan." Damon's voice is quiet but firm and Stefan can't believe that he's the one shouting while his older brother is the calm one. "She needs human blood from the vein, or she won't make it. A Halloween party full of drunk frat boys and illegal drugs is perfect. We won't even need to compel people."

"You're insane."

"No, you're insane for thinking you can turn her into you." Damon says quickly, and Stefan sees the desperation in his brother's eyes, desperation Stefan's seen staring back at himself several times in recent weeks. "Remember, Stefan, it's like math without the calculator. She can't learn to control the bloodlust unless she knows what it's like to be consumed by it."

Stefan doesn't offer to come along and Damon doesn't ask; even if he did have the confidence in his own control, this is a student-teacher thing and Stefan can't contribute to it. So he waves them off as they get into Damon's car and once they're gone he contemplates going down to the cellar and sitting in the Vervaine farm until his heart stops breaking.

Damon doesn't come home until Monday morning, bleary-eyed and exhausted, still wearing the clothes he left in two nights' earlier.

"How did she do?" Stefan can't believe they're having this conversation like normal people.

"Fine." Damon's expression is unreadable. "She did fine." He turns to leave but catches himself before he does. "A word of advice, brother?" He says as he reaches for a tumbler.

"Go on."

"Elena … do you know why she chose me to help her, and not you?" Damon's hands tremble as he splashes too much scotch into his glass; the sun's barely up and he's drinking enough to give even him liver damage.

Stefan wishes Ric were here, Ric with his own unmentioned alcohol problems and unrequited love for women he just can't have. Ric would know what to do, what to say. At the very least he'd let Damon break his neck so the vampire could feel better. But Ric's dead and in the ground, and Stefan can't answer his brother without either crying or flying into a fiery rage, so he just folds his arms and waits, and at length, Damon speaks.

"She's afraid of your judgement." Damon takes a long drink and refills the glass without looking. "Saint Stefan, the mighty moral vampire, snacking on furry forest animals while the rest of us horrible vampires feed on people."

"Those are your issues, Damon. Not Elena's. Don't project them onto her."

"No, Stefan, that's where you're wrong. You see, I don't really care what you think about my dietary habits. I mean, why would you? It's not like I've hidden them from you and let's be honest: I'm a saint compared to you. But Elena … she doesn't see it like that. You're as bad as each other, really. Seeing only what you want to see."

"Now you're putting words in her mouth."

"Oh trust me, she put them there all by herself. She's terrified, Stefan. Not just of being a vampire, but of disappointing you. Of being more like me than like you. Of being so like me that you won't love her anymore."

"That's ridiculous." Stefan scoffs even as that icy grip takes his nearly-static heart and squeezes. "That isn't us, Damon. Elena and I aren't like that. That isn't love."

Damon chuckles, but there's only sadness in his voice. "No, brother, you're right there. That isn't love."

"I would never judge her." Stefan insists. "I have no right to judge her."

"No, you don't." Damon agrees. "But that doesn't mean you wouldn't and – more importantly – it doesn't mean that Elena thinks you won't." He shakes his head and drains his glass again. "You're such an idiot." He snaps, and Stefan can see now that his brother's walls, so carefully erected since Stefan ricocheted back into their lives still in Klaus' thrall, are dangerously close to tumbling down. "You don't _see_ her, Stefan."

"Now you're being ridiculous."

"Am I? Its like … its like you see her, but you only see who she used to be, how you liked to imagine she was. And she isn't like that, Stefan. She isn't. She's more alive now that she's a vampire than she ever was as a human, but she's confused and she's terrified and you look at her like you've got no idea what to do with her-"

"I don't know what to do with her!" The words are out before Stefan can unthink them, but they're enough to still Damon's rant and allow Stefan space to talk. "I don't know what to do with her, Damon. She's a vampire but she's more human than ever and she can't keep anything but human blood in her system and I can't, literally _can't_ help her. But you? You can help her. You made her, Damon, Your blood flows in her veins, beats in her heart. You're in her heart in a way I'll never be. She's yours in a way she'll never be mine."

The two men glare at each other for a long time before Damon exhales and speaks the words that Stefan can't, once more making the decisions and offering the choices that no-one else will. It's getting to be a habit of theirs: Damon makes the choices to help Elena and Stefan reaps all the benefits.

"Well if you really want to help her, Stefan, then … let her go. Let her know that she needs to be free to make her own choices, since you're so big on that, even if you don't agree with them. Even if you can't be with her while she does. Give her the space to figure out who she is as a vampire."

"Right." Stefan can't keep the sarcasm out of his voice. "And of course, my leaving doesn't help your case at all."

Damon gives him a disgusted look. "I know you think I'm the devil, Stefan, but I happen to think the space from the both of us is the best thing for Elena right now. And maybe if you weren't owned by your own jealousy, you'd see that, too."

Stefan leaves the next day. Elena pleads and rails and promises him that she'll try the Bunny Diet, but Stefan shakes his head and pushes away her tears.

"I never wanted this for you, Elena." He says as he gently kisses her lips. "I never wanted you to be a vampire, but now that you are one, I want you to be the kind of vampire you need to be. I want you to be the kind of person you need to be. And I think you need time and space to figure that out."

They sit together on Elena's front porch for the longest time, the fragments of their relationship hanging between them. Eventually, Elena speaks, her voice full of sadness and finality.

"I do love you, Stefan."

"I know. And I love you too."

"I know. I just …. I feel like … by trying to be who you want me to be, the kind of vampire you want me to be, I won't be the kind of person I am now, the kind of vampire I am. And it makes me sad because I love you so much, but … I can't drink bunnies, Stefan. And the thing is, is that … I don't think I want to try to like bunnies. Not anymore."

Stefan leans into her face and gently kisses her. "I know."

He doesn't return to say goodbye, and the house is in darkness when he drives past on his motorcycle. He doesn't look back, but the Gilbert house looms large in his rearview mirror as he leaves Mystic Falls, once more unsure of when he'll return.

Snow is on the ground in Virginia, but Stefan's soaking up the sun in Cancun when a familiar shadow crosses his path.

"Elena." He's at her side in an instant, not able to help the smile that crosses his face.

She looks good; really good. Whatever it is she's doing, its working.

"You're a hard man to find."

"That's the whole point. You're looking well."

"Thanks. You too." Elena brushes her still-long hair out of her face and its then that Stefan sees it.

"I thought we lost that after the war." He reaches for the lapis lazuli pendant at her throat. "Mother loved that necklace."

Elena's cheeks flush, but not as much as Stefan expected. "I know." She says.

Stefan knows, of course. Knows about her and Damon. He and Damon talk on the phone, as do he and Elena, and he hears their voices in the background, hears the affection and halting conversations. It took years for the pair of them to get to where they are now – they always had liked fighting more than anything else – but Jeremy assures him that they're happy; gloriously, blissfully, imperfectly happy.

"You know, my father bought that for her, after Damon was born. First-born son and all that. But then, I'm guessing that you know that already, right?"

The smile on Elena's face is faint and cautious, but undeniably glorious. "I know."

"Well, it suits you."

"I think so, too."

"You look happy, Elena."

"I am happy. And … thank you."

"What for?"

"For just being … you. For giving me the space to be me. For knowing what I needed."

They stare at each other for a long time until Stefan envelops her in a hug. He had relinquished ownership of his heartbreak a long time ago, but there's something about watching his ex-love stand in front of him wearing the necklace that his father bought for his mother after the birth of his elder brother, knowing that aforementioned brother put it there that just makes him sad.

"I never judged you." He whispers against her hair, still soft and silky and smelling just faintly of bourbon and Damon's cologne. "Not once. I just wanted you to be happy."

"I know. And I am. Are you happy?"

"You know, I actually am."

"Still on the Bunny Diet?" Elena's voice is teasing, and Stefan likes how it sounds on her lips far more than he does on his brother's.

"Still on the Bunny Diet. It sucks but … as my brother likes to remind me, I keep falling off the edge so it's best to stay away from it altogether."

"I guess."

There's a flash of black behind her and then Damon's there too; trademark smirk and ruffled hair. His brother's always had a certain feral leanness to him, but it's no longer a suit of armour. Instead, for the first time ever, Damon looks comfortable in his own skin. Comfortable, and undeniably happy.

"Hello, brother."

"Hi, Damon."

They don't talk for long; Stefan has plans and Elena and Damon are just passing through, but their eyes all linger on each other and then Stefan's gaze lingers on Damon and Elena as they walk away, smiling as she rests her head on his shoulder just as his arm slips around his waist, pressing a kiss to her temple as Stefan had seen him do so many times in the past. They look so perfect together that Stefan has a hard time remembering that he once thought that he and Elena once looked that way.

Ownership's a funny thing really, but as Stefan watches them walk away, he knows that Elena was Damon's long before she was ever his.

FIN.


End file.
